Aldermen pick pool engineer

Clarendon’s water recreation project could be open for business next summer following last week’s action by the City Council.

The city recently reviewed proposals from engineering firms for the job, and aldermen reviewed a committee’s scoring of those proposals before voting to select Waters Edge Aquatic Design out of a group of seven applicants.

“This is a historic moment, guys,” Mayor Sandy Skelton told the council before the vote was taken.

Waters Edge has previously done the concept design work for the Clarendon pool project. City Administrator David Dockery said the firm was selected because for its ability to do all the engineering in-house, its record of bringing projects in either at or below budget, and because they felt they could meet the goal of finishing the project to be open next summer.

Waters Edge is also the same firm that designed the Wellington Aquatic Venue.
Dockery said groundbreaking on the $1.9 million water recreation facility is expected to take place in October.

In other city business, the aldermen voted to continue using the Donley County State Bank as the city’s depository.

Aldermen approved applying for a RAMP grant through the Texas Department of Transportation to patch cracks in the airport runway. The project is expected to cost about $34,000, and the grant would pay about fifty percent. The city already has about $14,000 in an account for airport work.

An agreement was signed with Chloe’s Canines to assist the city with adopting out dogs captured by animal control. The agreement calls for the city to pay the animal shelter $500 per year to assist the city.

In his administrator’s report, Dockery complimented the public works department for a recent in-house job that looped some waterlines downtown to improve water pressure to part of the central business district, including the Fire Hall. Dockery said the work should have a positive effect on the city’s key rates for insurance.

Aldermen also reviewed the draft budget and discussed the tax rate for the coming year. The council is proposing a tax rate of $0.75865 per $100 valuation, an increase over the current rate of $0.733821. Dockery said that while this year’s proposed rate is higher, the city will pay off some of indebtedness in 2019 that should in a much lower rate for 2020.